f. Development Standards

The city should implement a framework and standards for responsible development, for any large developments which seek any city benefit (including rezonings, subsidies, infrastructure construction, etc.). These need to be hard-wired as obligations, and may include public benefits such as local hires, long-term leases for retail, and local purchasing and development of local vendors. The following section outlines a framework for community benefits agreements, that should be a part of any large development proposal.

1. The City shall support and enforce Community Benefits Agreements for all large development projects.

The City shall aid local community coalitions in negotiating CBAs with developers and shall assist in the monitoring and enforcement of CBAs. The CBA shall be enforceable through the Office of Labor Standards Enforcement or other city administrative system where affected workers can take complaints of noncompliance.

Developer shall provide front-end benefits by a date at which it is clear that the development is moving forward or the date construction commences. Required reports must be at least once a year, publicly available, and due by a particular date. Commerical tenants are required to submit information to the developer in time for the developer’s report. Local government officials shall verify reports and investigate complaints. At least 30 days before signing a lease agreement or other contract for space within the proposed development, the developer will arrange and attend a meeting between the community coalition and the prospective tenant to discuss living wage and health benefit programs. Each business is informed of and agrees to the requirements that apply to it. Each business agrees that it will include those requirements in other contracts it enters into. Each business agrees that community groups, the local government or affected individuals can enforce the requirements.

The developer is subject to court orders to fulfill its commitments and cannot escape by paying money damages. There is a correction period, allowing each party a chance to correct problems once put on notice, a dispute-resolution system giving parties an ability to come together and work out solutions thereby avoiding litigation, and court action or arbitration as a last-resort enforcement option.

2. Large development projects shall commit to permanent living wage jobs, in addition to construction jobs.

The developer shall negotiate a project labor agreement with the San Francisco Building Trades Council to cover construction jobs.

The Minimum Compensation Ordinance standards cover everyone who directly or indirectly benefits from subsidies or leases space in a subsidized project. The developer commits to attaining living wages for 75 percent of the project’s jobs and will make all reasonable efforts to maximize the number of living wage jobs in the development. Tenants shall provide the developer with their wage levels. The developer and tenant provide annual or biannual reports on wages paid at the development and the percentage of jobs for which benefits are provided. The developer is required to meet with the community coalition to discuss wage levels of major commercial tenants prior to leases being signed and to discuss each prospective tenant’s impact on the living wage threshold. Tenants are required to attend such meetings so that they can provide information on likely wage levels, get informed about the project’s living wage goal and learn of any programs designed to assist employers in paying living wages or providing benefits. The developer will take into account as a substantial factor each prospective Tenant’s potential impact on the living wage threshold.

If the 75 percent threshold is not met for any two-year period, the developer agrees to pay a $10,000 penalty and to meet with the community coalition to develop additional steps to reach the living wage threshold. The developer is required to provide public explanations for failing to meet the goal, explain in a public forum how it intends to meet the goal, or collaborate with the City and community groups on efforts to increase the project’s wage levels.

3. Large development projects shall commit to local hiring and jobs training programs.

The developer shall work with the SF Building and Construction Trades Council and local building trades unions to apply targeted hiring requirements to construction jobs, fitting in with the systems governing hiring in the construction industry.

The developer shall provide funds for first source hiring system and job readiness programs – housed at the Labor and Community Studies at City College and the San Francisco Unified School District – to have a pool of new, job-ready applicants from the local community in place when jobs in the development arise.

The developer shall provide seed money for a jobs training program for the lowest income families living in the area – the community coalition shall seek additional grant through HUD’s Community Outreach Partnership Centers Program. The community coalition shall send members and constituents to the job readiness program as well as acting as faculty in the classroom – Economic Survival, ESL Levels 1 and II, and Computer Literacy Levels I and II.

The developer shall have targeted hiring programs requiring that employers in a development make special efforts, with assistance of local job training programs or a “first source” office, to hire individuals whose jobs or residences are displaced by the development; residents of the neighborhood immediately surrounding the development; residents of low-income census tracts in San Francisco; individuals graduating from or referred by local, community-based job training organizations; low-income individuals whose household income is no greater than 80 percent of the median income, adjusted for household size, for the Primary Metropolitan Statistical Area; and “special needs” individuals such as public assistance recipients, an individual who is homeless, individual who is chronically unemployed or ex-offenders. The community coalition shall develop a tiered system of first, second and third priorities for available jobs.

The developer shall be required to provide space or funding for a First Source office or establishment of a new job training program.

The developer is required to provide seed money for a job training program for day laborers, operated by the San Francisco Day Labor Program.

Employers in the development are required to give notice of job openings by mailings to targeted neighborhoods, advertisements in community newspapers and notification to job training centers. Employers are required to hold jobs open for a certain period of time after notification and to only interview targeted individuals during that period. Employers are required to interview people referred by job training centers or First Source office. The First Source office receives notice of job openings from employers, maintains contact with job training organizations to access their pools of applicants and promptly refers qualified workers to employers. Employers are required to report on the percentage of their hires that were targeted individuals. Employers are required to file periodic reports on the percentages of their hires that are targeted individuals, and to describe any difficulties they have had in complying with the program. Employers who fail to meet percentage hiring goal are required to explain in writing the reasons for certain hiring decisions. Employers are required to provide long-range information about training needs so local job training organizations can tailor their programs to fit those needs.

The community coalition shall enforce targeted hiring requirements. To avoid legal problems, the community coalition shall carefully and narrowly design neighborhood specific hiring programs to address poverty or economic distress in a particular neighborhood, with detailed findings regarding the need for such measures; and provide strong and detailed justification for any hiring program that incorporates race- or gender-based criteria if it becomes part of a development agreement. To avoid legal problems, the community coalition shall memorialize right-to-organize commitments in a separate document to include “card check” and “neutrality” agreements.

4. Large development projects shall commit to affordable housing beyond the minimum requirements in existence for smaller developers.

If residential is included in the project, the developer is required to construct on-site affordable housing – CBA strengthens inclusionary zoning requirements and affordability requirements to require at least 15 percent of new units be affordable, linked to regional median income with the goal that households should pay no more than 30 percent of income towards rent – improves existing requirements to include: percentage of units that will be made affordable, definition of “affordable,” the number of years after construction that the units must remain affordable, whether or how the required affordable units will be integrated with the market-rate units; number of bedrooms in affordable units; whether the developer will apply for a waiver or reduction in affordability requirements as permitted under law; whether the developer will contribute money to an affordable housing fund rather than building affordable units; and whether the affordable units must be built at the same time as the market rate units.

The developer is required to provide funding for interest-free loans as “seed money” to area nonprofit affordable housing developers – the community coalition shall set up a revolving loan fund for use by several local nonprofit housing developers and ensure local nonprofit developers know about this opportunity.

The developer shall provide funding to support programs that help low-income individuals become homeowners, repair their homes or remain in their homes when at risk of foreclosure because of predatory lending.

5. Large development projects shall commit to support local economic development, including support for locally-owned and neighborhood-serving businesses.

The developer shall bring in businesses desired by the neighborhood, such as a supermarket or bank. The developer shall provide space for locally-owned and local-serving businesses displaced by the development. The developer shall include space for community-serving nonprofits at a reduced rent. The developer shall set aside 10 percent of retail space for existing small businesses in the area, reserves the space for six months and aggressively markets this opportunity to qualified firms.

The developer is required to target business opportunities to neighborhood businesses for service contracts, such as security, landscaping or custodial services, supply contracts and construction contracts. The developer must notify local contracting organizations of contracting opportunities; assist local businesses in bid preparation; break large contracts down into smaller contracts; make good faith efforts to award contracts to local businesses; and attempt to meet percentage goals for local business awards.

The developer shall commit to excluding businesses that have a track record of labor violations, workplace safety violations, or environmental problems as contractors hired by the developer and tenants, and as tenants, based on specific, independently verifiable criteria, such as: a current designation by a government entity that the business is not a responsible contractor or is not eligible for public contracts; recent administrative or judicial findings that the business has violated labor or employment law, or legal settlements making such admission; and recent citations for violation of environmental laws. Businesses are required to report on such violations to the developer and the developer is required to report to the community coalition.

The developer shall work with the community coalition to select a quality child care provider to lease the facility to provide child care for both on-site employees and the surrounding community and in its lease require that a minimum of 50 spaces shall be made available to very low, low and moderate-income families.

The developer shall invest in or lend money to a Community Development Financial Institution that makes loans that are targeted to communities, businesses, and nonprofits that are underserved by the traditional for-profit lending market.

The developer shall require worker retention provisions of the developer’s contractors, tenants’ contractors and tenants that provide job security to long-term workers when a contract or lease changes hands and that prevent employers from firing existing workers in order to break the union that represents those workers.

The developer shall require the prime contractor to work with building trades unions and community organizations to contract with local businesses that will follow prevailing wage requirements which require decent wages and benefits and project labor agreements which establish a common set of work rules, working conditions, hiring practices and settlement dispute mechanisms with the stipulation that there will be no strikes by the union or lockouts by management. The prime contractor is required to assist local contractors in complying with project wage requirements and new systems and bring community members into established union apprenticeship programs and fund pre-apprenticeship programs.

The developer shall target outreach to small businesses of a defined size, disadvantaged businesses, relevant business organizations, and minority- and women-owned businesses in the project impact area – including them in pre-bid conferences, holding “Meet the General Contractor” meetings, unbundling construction projects into bid sizes that will allow them level competition, and providing assistance with access to bonding, insurance, procurement and other types of capacity-related assistance where necessary.

6. Large development projects shall provide additional community benefits in partnership with the communities they locate in, including support for neighborhood health care, schools and child care, parks and recreation, and the local environment.

Schools and After-school Programs. The developer shall provide funding for arts programs, music programs or educational programs in the San Francisco Unified School District.

Parks and Recreation. The developer must fund a needs assessment regarding parks, open space, and recreational facilities in the project’s neighborhood. Depending on needs, the developer shall make expenditures for park and recreation facilities – e.g., provide a family recreation center that will be free to area residents, rehabilitation of an existing park, youth center, or senior center.

Environment. Any mitigated negative declaration of an environment impact report is incorporated into the CBA and enforceable by the community coalition. The developer must take into consideration green space and green design principles.